Becca's Wedding and Visit with Anna Min

In early November Joshua and I headed to New Mexico for Becca's wedding. Becca, Emily and I were best friends in high school. It was a really great chance for me to reflect back on our high school days and on the nearly 20 years since I moved to Gallup and met those two. We have grown and changed so much, but the bond we formed from those early experiences is still strong. And it brought me such joy to see her so happy.

One of the best parts of the trip was that my sister drove over from Amarillo to spend a couple days with me. It was so wonderful to spend some good quality time with my sister without all of our kids. I love my sister so much. I think she is such a beautiful, smart, and talented person. It made the trip so special that she was able to come.

An August for the recordbooks

August 2011 was one of the craziest months I have experience to date.  It all starting to be a blur in my imagination.  Gavin broke his arm, I had a baby, and we moved.  I will also mention there was hurricane and an earthquake here as well. 

We returned from our trip out west and were lucky enough to spend a few days with my dear dear friend Julia and her family.  We felt so lucky that they came to visit us. 

The next week we had to say good-bye to the Brashers

Then our dear friends, the Brunson's returned to the city and we were lucky enough to spend some time with them, well a little time before  

GAVIN BROKE HIS ARM and had to have surgery.  Gavin was as at Camel Park with the Brunson's, Eli, and Dad.  He fell off the monkey bars and started screaming.  Boyd didn't realize at first what ws going on.  But, as soon as he saw his arm he knew it was broken.  He jumped in a cab and went to the ER.  When I got home, Eli came up to me and told me not everyone came home and told me Gavin broke his arm. I am panicked and ran up to the ER.  Gavin was put on Morphine right away.  It was a compound fracture of his humerus bone.  It was going to require surgery.  But, it was a weekend and he had to wait until the next day to have surgery.  Boyd spent the night at the hospital with Gavin since I was 9 months pregnant.  Boyd said it was a horrible night and it was horrible to watch Gavin in so much pain.  He had surgery the next day.  Boyd was able to be with him while he was "put under".  He had to leave after that.  Both Boyd and I waited for the surgery to be done.  Waiting for him to wake up was such a scary time for us. 

Luckily we were able to be discharged that night.  Gavin was very concerned about spending time with Jane. 

It was adjustment for all of us. Gavin had to get used to using one arm.  He could also not got to the park, playground, go swimming, or  ride his scooter!

Luckily Grandma and Grandpa arrived about a week later.

Joshua was born a week and a half after Gavin broke his arm.  I did write a nice long post of that back when it happened! 

A week after Joshua was born we finally moved into our new apartment.  We had been waiting for a year and unfortunatly it had to be a week after Joshua was born.  We couldn't have done it with out my parents.

I failed to mentioned that there was also an Earthquake and a hurricane in New York in August.  Both of are extremely rare in New York.  Both were mild, I must note.  

Since I am writing this post almost 5 months later, I can say that we have officially recovered.  Gavin's arm is completely healed and is back on the monkey bars.  Joshua is an adorable 5 month old who just rolled over this weekend and our apartment is spacious and light filled.  Eli, you ask? Hopefully, he as recovered for the lack of attention he received that month.

We also couldn't have done without all our dear friends who helped by sending meals, babysitting, and just being there to support.

Summer Vacation

For our summer vacation this past summer we spent a full week with Grandma and Grandpa in Brigham City at my Grandma Call's house.  My parents were living there and we wanted to have some fun.  We got to take swimming lessons while were there and well and spend some good quality time with Grandma and Grandpa, cousins, and Grandma Call.  We spend the second week of our vacation in San Diego at Grandma Nolte's 90th birthday celebration!

Perry Parade

Slip and Slide

One of favorite pictures.. Hiking with Grandma and Grandpa

Playing skip-bo with Grandma Call.  We were lucky to spend some good quality time with her

We even got to meet up with Cousin Sophie at a children's museum in Ogdon

Grandma Nolte's birthday celebration

Mormon Battalion Museum

Boyd made his first attempt at surfing

Train ride!

Padres game

Go Padres!

Remember?

Remember when I was going to post all my update posts about the summer back in October.  Oops.  Oh well. I am still do some crazy update posts.  Now that we are in our post-Christmas, winter blues phase we can look at these pictures and look forward to next summer.  These pictures were taken at the end of the school year and the beginning of the summer. 

Gavin's Kindergarten graduation

Beach Days

Eli took a Gardening class at the botanical gardens

Grandma Miggy came for Gavin's Birthday

Strawberry Picking

Beach days

More strawberry Picking

For Gavin's birthday this year we went to Victoria Gardens with a small little group.  They had a blast.

Much of the beginning of the summer was spent trying to spend quality time with Lucas, Mackenzie, and Sam.  We learned that they were going to be moving to Texas.  It was a huge loss for us.  We tried to spend as much time together as we could before they left. 

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Happy Halloween!

At our ward Halloween carnival

Halloween was a lot of fun.  We certainly didn't run out Halloween festivities and couldn't help but be happy the day was finally over.
We have always had fairly easy costumes in the past, but this year Gavin wanted to be a Wild Thing from Where the Wild Things Are.  I stressed and stressed about how I was going to come up with a costume.  With a LOT of help from my dear friend Lynda, I think we pulled it off.  She pretty much sewed the mask/hat all by herself with out a pattern, just a picture.  Gavin, however, was being very difficult.  He insisted that the monster had a yellow striped shirt and not orange.  We orginally sewed orange stripes.  I told him he had to fix it if he wanted it different.  So, he cut out the yellow stripes and taped it over the orange stripes.

Eli started out as a ghost, but ended up a bear (Gavin's costume from 2 years ago).  Boyd was a Bishop chess piece (haha).  I was a bat.  Joshua was a dragon for our indoor events and Pooh for our outdoor events.

Our Halloween activies included carving pumpkins

Pumpkin Festival and pumpkin picking where Gavin and Eli got to play in hay

School parade and carnival

and of course, trick-or-treating!

End of the school year

Gavin had a great Kindergarten year in Ms. Alicea's class and celebrated with an end of the year program.Overall, we feel Gavin had a positive first year of school. 

Grandma Miggy came for Gavin's Birthday and for the end of the school year.

Brooklyn Cyclone game to end Gavin's baseball season.

Eli had a great year at Book Buddies.  They had an end of the year party and put on a little performance.  We love Ms. Amy